


Ignite

by avislightwing



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Character Study, Drabble, Gen, I don't know how else to tag this, s2ep42
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-19
Updated: 2018-11-19
Packaged: 2019-08-25 19:24:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16666801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/avislightwing/pseuds/avislightwing
Summary: The end of episode 42 from Caleb's perspective.





	Ignite

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The Feeling of Fire](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16655704) by [yfere](https://archiveofourown.org/users/yfere/pseuds/yfere). 



Caleb was so tired.

His eyes hurt like he’d rubbed sand in them – like they were drenched in the salt-dense waters that crashed on the rocks of Darktow over and over, neverending, into eternity. Characters and symbols swam before his gaze. It had taken him nearly ten long hours to decipher and write out everything. He’d barely closed his eyes, and he hadn’t slept since the previous dawn.

He stumbled on the docks, cursing under his breath. The journal was in his bag, obvious and damning. Stupid. Stupid. It should be in the Plank King’s hands right now. Caleb’s head was fuzzy and his blood was racing hot in his veins.

_Have you ever sacrificed anything?..._

Caleb’s mouth tasted like ash and soot.

Ahead of them, he could already see Avantika on the deck of the ship. Dangerous, that woman, with her sharp, sharp yellow eyes and her smiling, inviting mouth and the scar on her hand where the staring eye used to be. He was scared shitless of her. They all were – they’d seen how deadly she could be. They saw how fanatical she was.

This was not how it was supposed to go.

The gangplank creaked as he walked up it, shoulders hunched, filthy hair shadowing his face. He felt Nott’s hand slip into his for a moment, squeeze tightly, let go.

With every step, he could feel flames at his heels. It felt like they’d been beating back the fire for weeks, and they’d run out of time.

_Time. They were out of time._

_Mother and Father, I hope I do not disappoint you._

Caleb swayed on his feet as he stood with the rest of the crew. As Avantika, red hair glowing in the early-morning sunlight, stalked the boards like a predator. As her yellow eyes scanned each of them, lingering on Fjord. As Caduceus, mild-faced and innocent, said that he could find creatures, but not objects.

And then his attention snapped to Vera as she reached a hand up and started tracing symbols through the air, as she said that she could.

Time seemed to stop.

It was like when he first looked in the Dodecahedron. Like when he reached out and caught a fragment of possibility in his palm.

But this wasn’t possibility.

It was phosphorus.

He was so tired, but it suddenly didn’t seem to matter as he swiped sooty fingers across his palm, rested the edge of one hand in another like a pistol, and aimed across the deck.

In the moment before he cast, his eyes locked with Avantika’s, and he could see her fury.

_Have you ever sacrificed anything?_

Oh, he had. So had Fjord.

She knew nothing about sacrifice.

And then the flame-red of her hair was consumed in his sand-dry eyes in the flame-orange of a wall of fire.


End file.
